It’s obvious that the gorgeous fashion in Sex and the City: The Moviewas a form of advertising for Vivienne Westwood, Manolo Blahnik, Prada and the rest of the designers whose clothes were featured. The outfits worn by Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha have been heavily commented on by the media and lusted after by viewers like me. While the fashion on the show was more quirky than high-end, it was still a major trendsetter, and the filmmakers knew this movie would be scrutinized to the extent that a single episode of the show could not be. Thus, they took advantage of the the chance to make some extra cash in advertising revenue.
So if knowing we would intently study the movie, and chose to “sell” us some clothes, they too made a constant choice to “sell” us some ideas.
I want to preface this by saying yes, I realize the television show didn’t exactly glorify intellectualism. It too had a tendency to simplify complex ideas, focused on relationships over career and family, and encouraged stereotypes.
But we as consumers don’t place so much blame on television shows when they do this, because it’s only a half-hour to hour span of time, and a new episode each week. In this format, it’s hard to “say” much of anything with each episode. We do enjoy watching characters evolve. But a half-hour is not enough time to peel back layers of personalities, revealing characters’ unexpected traits, or dive into complicated issues and ideas, in the hopes of unearthing a pure truth. Only a long-running show with devoted viewers can do that. Sex and the City, the series, did meet this criteria, and succeeded by choosing to focus on creating situations viewers recognized from their own lives.
But the movie was an opportunity to take an as yet uncovered topic or situation, and really say something. The show made viewers say “That’s me! That’s how I feel!” The movie could have used its two hours to help them discover why.
Instead, it chose to perpetuate lingering stereotypes about women and men.
